Normal
by teenagewitch94
Summary: "It seems like my life's goal is to find the word normal in the dictionary and see my picture looking back at me in the space for the antonym." The beginning of a friendship that makes Leah feel like that much less of an oddity. Bleach Barbie Version 2.


Disclaimer: I own nothing. All characters and settings that you recognize belong to Stephenie Meyer. I just like to play with them.

Hope you like it and please review!

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You can't really remember what it felt like to be normal. The concept of wanting to finish high school like a normal person and then maybe go to college seems like a bit of a foreign dream. Like one of those idiotic chic flicks where you roll your eyes at the screen and think _no way in hell would this ever happen_.

Being a normal girl never even seemed like something that anyone could want, it was just such a given. Until you find out you're some sort of fucking mythical creature oddity—because that's what you are. You're not even a normal werewolf. It's bad enough to be a werewolf for God's sake, but then of course you're a first-of-your-gender she-wolf, so you're not even normal in the pack.

The pack is supposed to be your family, but even then, you don't fit in. This whole brotherhood shit is all well and good, until you phase and even your alpha can't wrap his head around it—the girly wolf, the only 'sister' in existence. That's just fantastic, because it seems like your life's goal is to find the word normal in the dictionary and see your picture looking back at you in the space for the antonym.

What did you ever do to deserve a life that's so fucking complicated?

You're about as far from the normal girl's life as you can get. It usually includes high school then college, hanging with friends, boyfriends, gossip, watching TV, and spending hours on Facebook. Yeah, so you're finished high school and not allowed to go to college until you stop phasing. You have no friends who aren't your 'brothers', no life to gossip about or anyone to gossip with, and no interest in TV because every character on every damn show is too full of crap and _happy_, and it makes you sick. Oh, and no boyfriend—you don't even want to get started on the _no boyfriend_, because the stupid, completely abnormal shit gets even better for that story. Imprinting on your fucking _cousin_—he can go to hell.

Except that you don't want him to. You still fucking love him, and still want him to choose you after all he's done to you. Even though you know he can't and won't. So not only do you define abnormal, you're also pathetic.

And then one day, you get a chance to make your life a little less abnormal. Not anywhere close to normal, but closer then you were before. So you run off from your pack and you're ex who's been stuck with you for way longer than he's wanted to be and has mortifyingly had access to your thoughts, and your mother who loves you, but whose constantly pitying gaze makes life that much harder to deal with.

You run off to join you brother and Jacob Black of all people. To help them be guard dogs for the leeches. It's saying something that this is a step in the direction of normal, but it is. You get away from Sam, from having to hear every day how much he doesn't want you there. You get away from La Push and all of the awful memories of your dad's death, of your wasted time with Sam, and of all your shallow once-friends. You almost get to start fresh, even for just a bit.

And you get to know Jake, who is not nearly as much of an ass as you thought. You get to try to make him feel better, and to be reminded of how similar the two of your situations are. What a thing to bond over, but you do. It's kind of nice to have someone else know what you're going through. To have someone else be the miserable one for a change, however awful you feel for thinking that. And you do feel awful, because you do have a soul. You have feelings. You're not just the bitter, self-absorbed bitch people think you are—not at all. Apparently, you're just a really good actress.

So no, you're not miserable anymore. Away from the awfulness that was La Push for you, this isn't miserable. It just isn't happy either. It's middle ground. It's nothingness.

And this lasts for a while. There are periods of anger, mostly at Bella; periods of worry, for Jake and Seth usually; and occasional periods of fun, again with Jake or Seth. Usually though, your emotional slate is blank.

No feeling is better than constantly depressed, though, so you decide you want to keep it this way. You want to stay with Jake, after his whole mess with the Cullens is over. You want to keep the blank slate.

Jake will let you, you're pretty sure, even though he denies it. He has a heart too, and he wouldn't send you back to that shit no matter how pissed he was. So you're not that worried at first, until he goes and tips your new, comfortable little world upside-down. He goes and fucking imprints. On the little half-breed leech spawn. And that's all freaking fantastic for him, and you really are glad he's happy, although the little monster makes you want to be sick. The problem is that you're still not happy, and you were counting on Jake to be miserable with you, and suddenly he's not.

The shock and somewhat unfounded feelings of hurt and betrayal put a bit of a damper on the blankness that you liked so much. It makes it less comforting to be in this pack—it reminds you of the last alpha to imprint. And you're jealous, because it was you who wanted to imprint, not Jake. You want to put it behind you and you fucking can't, and you feel like shit because you can't even be properly happy for Jake.

It's not like you can leave. Even if you wanted to, you can't split off on your own into your own little world any more than you could when you wanted to get out of Sam's pack. You don't even properly want it though, because you went and got attached to your moron of an alpha and you love your brother too much. You don't want to leave, you don't want to stay. You have no idea what the hell you want these days, but life goes on.

A few months go by like this, with nothing really notable happening except strengthening your dislike of Bella Swan after she fucking breaks your brother's arm. He's not even upset about it—laughs it off—but you really can't stand her after that.

Life gets pretty dull, with Jake spending all his time with the mutant spawn and Seth going back to La Push sometimes to chill with his friends—because he actually has friends. You consider going with him a few times, but usually decide against it, because really, what's the point. There's no one besides your mother you would even consider going to see, and with all the shit going on between her and Charlie Swan, you really don't even feel like doing that.

It's boring times like these, when your mind is not busy, that get dangerous in terms of thoughts. You start to think about what you would be doing if everything was the way it was supposed to be—with no werewolves or vampires or imprinting. You could probably even deal with the first two, if the third didn't exist.

That Leah, if she were bored, would go to a movie in Port Angeles with a friend, or be meeting up with her boyfriend when she was supposed to be in class, or be phoning Emily while lying on her bed. That Leah was never really without anything to do. That Leah was happy. That Leah was normal.

You were almost thankful that a group of Italian killer leeches picked that time to come into your life. At least it was something to take your mind off all of that ridiculous self pity that you hate so much, but can't seem to stop doing.

The build up to that fight was intense, so that it was entirely anticlimactic when it actually did happen. It was great for Jake and the leeches that it all worked out, but really, you wanted a fight. You wanted _something _to do.

After that, you almost fell back into the pattern of doing nothing. Almost settled back into your familiar state of self-inflicted torture, when someone completely unexpected intervened. It's still crystal clear in your mind. The one conversation that actually did change your life, however Hollywood that line sounds. It was about three weeks after the Volturi had left, and you were sitting in this low to the ground, Y-shaped tree, watching all the day's activities from the air.

Jake and Emmett were wrestling, while Alice and Half, as you started calling her after Jake, for whatever reason, objected to 'half-breed leech', were cheering and betting on the winner. Seth and Edward were playing chess—it's only October and Seth is inside playing chess with a mind reader. You remember thinking that that must've been really fun, until you saw Bella on the steps, sketching something in a huge notebook, and assumed that she was blocking Seth from Edward's mind. And you still thought that your brother must be having a blast—chess? Really?

You wondered briefly where Rosalie was, before you remembered that you didn't care, because it wasn't as if it affected you—or so you thought.

"Hey Wolf!" you heard one of the leeches call out, and you wondered why the hell any of them needed to be bothering you. You looked down to see Rosalie calling from the ground. She was one of the leeches you didn't have as much of a problem with, besides your little fight over Bella a few months ago, so you actually decided to respond.

"What?" you asked, not bothering to be polite, because when did you ever bother to be polite.

She looked at you for a second before asking, "Can I come up?"

You just shrugged, because besides the smell, which you were being hit with anyways, you didn't really care either way. She swung up onto a branch fairly close to yours and just sat there swinging her legs for a bit. She turned when she realized that you weren't going to initiate a conversation any time soon.

She started almost matter-of-factly, "You sitting here doing nothing all the time is getting a bit pathetic."

You were so not in the mood for that right then, so you just shook your head and rolled your eyes. "Thanks for letting me know."

She smirked a bit, then looked back at you, "We should go do something."

It was so out of the blue that you were a little confused by what that meant, because she couldn't have meant what it sounded like she did. "What?"

She shrugged, "Whatever you want."

You shook your head, "No, I mean, what are you talking about?"

She stared at you, her expression questioning your intelligence, "We, you and me, should get into my car and go somewhere or do something."

You were still struggling to understand where this was coming from, "Why?"

"I just told you—all this moping is pathetic and I'm sick of it."

How typical, you thought—we should go out, because I'm tired of you minding your own business. That doesn't even make sense.

"I'm not in the mood leech. Just leave me the hell alone," you told her, hoping she would get the message. Later, you were thankful that she didn't.

She didn't even seem to hear you, "We're similar in more ways than you think, we would probably get along. Let's just go do _something_. You have to be sick of just sitting here."

You weren't going to give her the satisfaction of knowing she was right, so not responding seemed like a good idea to you. You just gave her a look, which she apparently misinterpreted to mean _keep talking to me. _

She continued, "I'll give you plenty of reasons why we're similar. Then, if you can come up with more reasons why this is a bad idea, you get out of jail free."

You sighed, realizing she was actually planning to sit here and annoy you, "Look leech, I'm honoured to be chosen as your _good deed of the day_ or whatever it is that's propelling you to sit here, but seriously, I don't care. Go away."

She started talking again, and you had to hand it to her, she was persistent. "No listen, wolf. We were both drawn into this magical world against our will, we both had a guy break out hearts, we both hide emotion behind sarcasm and bitterness, we both really and truly would do anything for our family, we both know what it feels like to be pitied and we _hate_ it...I could go on," she raised her eyebrows at you, daring you to deny any of what she had said, but you couldn't and she knew it.

You were clearly very bored and a little crazy right then, because you decided to humour her. You took a deep breath and let it out in a huff, "Right, so, while that is surprisingly truth-like," she grinned at that, "I still don't see why you have any reason to care what I do with myself."

She looked away, "Well, we're going to be living together for a while, right? With the Nessie and _Jacob_," she seemed to struggle with getting his name out, "thing going on, and I figured I may as well get used to you. I mean, you don't have to be miserable the whole time if you don't want to be. You're just choosing to be."

You almost interrupted her to say that you just didn't really like the idea of her company, but she rushed on.

"So I thought I'd come out and be your intervention-ist or whatever."

"How nice of you," you remember drawling, "I'm so flattered that you decided to feel sorry for me—"

She glared at you when you said that and cut you off, "I don't feel sorry for you. Not even a little. I think you're making a huge fucking mistake and I'm trying to stop you, because you're too stubborn to see it. Even Jacob is trying to be social, and you know how much he loves us."

"Look, _you_ came to bother _me_. If I'm annoying you so much, just go back..." you trailed off when she started talking over you.

"Okay, Wolf, I really didn't plan on telling you this, but what the hell," she glanced at me and then away again. "You sort of remind me of myself when I was first changed. All I wanted was revenge on that bastard and then to get myself killed. And I'm not saying that you're suicidal, it's just that I was in a much worse place than you mentally, and I still managed to find a family here." She paused for a bit, and took a breath she didn't need, "At first I had no friends and I felt alone all the time. And it's like looking in a fucking mirror, because I used to sit by myself and do absolutely nothing and it took years for me to even remember how to have normal feelings again. And I really want to help you because..." she closed her eyes for a second, "...because I wish someone could have slapped me awake earlier so I wouldn't have wasted all that time."

You just stared at her blankly. Why the hell she was telling you this, because that was seriously personal information, and yet at the same time you were curious to know more. You wondered which bastard she was talking about and what had happened, but you weren't going to ask _that_ right now—definitely not your business.

She was waiting for you to say something, but you were drawing a blank, wondering how in hell you were supposed to respond to that. You remembered someone telling you that it was easier to spill your secrets to a stranger than a friend...

"Well," you told her quietly, "you seem to know what you're talking about. Maybe you're not such a rock after all, Barbie. And alone is a pretty good describing word for me right now."

She finally looked back at you, having given her little speech to the tree, "Yeah, I thought so." She looked at you for a little while before smirking slightly. "So," she paused, pulling something out of her pocket, "girls' day out?"

You weren't sure how to respond to that, because you didn't really want to go, but you really had no excuse. Plus, she'd been pretty honest and open, the least you could do was tolerate a car ride. Stupid heart of yours.

She seemed to take your hesitance as a no, though, so she continued on trying to convince you. "What kind of a girl doesn't like shopping? Especially when someone else is paying?" She held up a credit card that she'd fished out of her pocket. You laughed a bit at the show she was putting on. It seemed like she really did want to go. She was clearly also a very good actress, or so you thought at the time. "And you can't say that you hate me because you can't hate me if you don't know me, and the fact that we're mortal enemies doesn't count because Jacob is friends with Bella and my husband."

You almost put her out of her misery and just told her that you would come, if only to shut her up, but she seemed to be on a bit of a roll. "_And_, you can't say that you just don't want to be in a confined space with me, because my car is a convertible, so if anything, the wind will probably make the stench more bearable."

You sighed, "Alright, leech. Where do you want to go?"

She looked genuinely pleased at that, "Really?"

You shrugged, "Worst case scenario–I hate it and have an awful day. Well, seeing as I'm having a rather boring day anyways, it's something to fill my time..."

She grinned, as she leaped off the branch and motioned for you to follow her to the ground, "That's the spirit."

You rolled your eyes as you followed her to the Cullen's garage. Your first impression was that it was roughly the size of your entire house.

When you got inside, you had to take a minute to gawk. You didn't know a lot about cars, but even with your minimal knowledge and random things you've picked up in Jake's mind, you can tell these are the good ones. The really good ones. The ones people save their whole lives to buy. The kind where a tire would cost as much as your entire wardrobe and bedroom set combined. You borrowed a page out of Jake's book and took a moment to drool.

By the time you collected yourself, _Rosalie_, as you decided you should start referring to her as, had the car started and the top down, ready to go. You walked over and got in the passenger seat, thinking that if there was one thing the Cullens knew how to do, it was to look impressive. Whether that was through clothes, cars, houses, food—and they don't even _eat_, they always had the best. How much money did they actually have?

She revved the engine, and within seconds you were going 155 miles/hour, flying over the long driveway. You had to admit, she knew how to drive.

"Where are we going, exactly?" you wondered, after she'd reached the main road.

"We have to go down to Hoquiam, and then maybe even Aberdeen. We could go into Port Angeles, but I'm supposed to be at University, so we don't want to be recognized. It's going to take about 30 - 45 minutes, sorry."

You snorted. _30 -_ _45 minutes_. Did she know that it took normal people just over two hours to make that drive? Oh well, you thought wryly, we're not normal people.

"Hey wol—er...Leah, you know we're going to be moving soon? Not _soon_, soon, but in the near future. I mean, we'll stay within the hour running range so we can visit Charlie often, but we're going to have to move. Seth is going to come, and Nessie's pup, obviously, and I was wondering..." she turned to look at you, "...if you'd want to join, too?"

You thought she actually sounded unsure of herself—that was new.

You shrugged, "Well, I guess I'm just following the rest of my pack. It's the only option, right?"

"Yeah. Right. Well, you see, if you were to come with us, you could go to high school with us, again, and we could get you a place to live really close, and..." she trailed off.

You just stared at her. Did she just basically ask you if I wanted to join her screwed-up family? You didn't respond right away, and Rosalie looked back towards the road as the two of you settled into awkward silence.

When you thought about it, Alice could be kind of fun if she wanted to be; little miss bubbly. And Jasper was alright; tortured soul and all that. Carlisle and Esme were your typical parents, if a little young, and Jake really liked Emmett. If you could just steer clear of Bella, Edward, and Half, it could actually be half-way decent. The constant smell of bleach might be a hassle, but it's not as if that can be helped.

"Yeah, that would be cool. Thanks," you said, in what you hoped was a casual voice.

She looked so thoroughly relieved that you almost laughed. You wondered who had given her the task of asking you that, and what answer or fight she had anticipated. "Fantastic. Well, in that case, here you go. It's your new legal alias."

She handed you a new shiny black credit card, from a company which probably costs more to get a card from than your family's life savings. You smirked at her, "Oh yeah, because we look so similar we could almost be twins."

She rolled her eyes—you were both doing that a lot today, "Well, we're all meant to be adopted anyways. It's not like it really matters."

You hummed in what you hoped came across as agreement. As you ran your fingers over the name printed in gold on the front of the card, you glanced out where the window would've been so that she couldn't see your smile widen as you read the name again.

_Leah Cullen_. It had a certain charm, a nice ring to it.

Well, sort of, anyways.

You glanced at her and she started smiling a bit too. "That's so you can pay for the entire stock of merchandise possessed by every store in Hoquiam."

You briefly wondered if you should actually take that seriously. You raised your eyebrows, "Please tell me you're joking, Barbie. I don't like shopping that much."

She smirked, "Yeah. And don't call me Barbie. Ever."

"Well, what can I call you then? I take it you don't like 'leech' and _Rosalie_ is just too last century."

She pursed her lips. "_Rosalie_ is just fine in this century, thanks. I'm bringing it back into style. But the rest of the family calls me Rose. You can use that if you want."

It didn't escape your notice that she said 'the _rest_ of the family', as if you were already a part of it. The somewhat witty response about it being accurate, beautiful yet covered in thorns, died on your lips. That was actually kind of sweet; intentional or not.

Your family sort of fell apart when your dad died, and the pack family was never much of a source of comfort to you.

Maybe it was time to look for a new one. The completely abnormal family of vamps and werewolves—but hell, normal is just another word for boring.

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xoxo tw94


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